Meta

ISIS

The Refugee Crisis as we are calling it here in the west is in actual fact a war crisis. War creates refugees, it is a certainty that where there are wars people will flee, kind of like taxes – this goes back a very, very long way.

There are currently 42 conflicts happening in the world, with the UK not having a single year of peace in over the last one hundred years. It should come at no surprise then that there is a refugee crisis. However the response and coverage of this “refugee crisis” – has not only been extremely one sided and centred around Europe, it complete flies in the face of the facts.

Media coverage would have us believe that hordes are banging on Britain gates, as they try to get to this green and pleasant land, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Europe is not under siege by refugees, in actual fact a tiny amount of the worlds refugees are even attempting to get into Europe.

The main figures we have to go on are from the end of 2014 (2015 figures won’t be released until later this year), we have of course seen one million refugees and migrants (big distinction between the two) enter Europe over the course of 2015, but even if we deduct this from the world figure, it still doesn’t take much of a dent of the world refugee overall total, so lets look at the figures in greater depth.
At the end of 2014 59.5 million people around the world were displaced, of that figure 19.5 million were refugees, roughly 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced every single day and it has reached the point where 1 in every 122 human beings on the planet is effected by this.

That one million don’t seem like so much any more does it? And when we look at the response by the developing world, it gets even more shameful for Europe, considering that developing countries host 86% of the worlds refugees. G20 countries meanwhile account for 85% of the worlds GDP, so it is clear where their priorities lie (profit, not people).

Whether we like it or not, this is a global problem, and in many cases a problem we have made worse, through western militarism. If we can find the money to bomb these peoples homes, surely we can find the money to provide one for them?

So how is it that the majority of the burden rests on developing countries, when we clearly have the lions share of the worlds resources, therefore the greatest capacity to help.
These figures are not new either, yet we haven’t heard about the refugee crisis engulfing Africa, or Asia – it only became a problem when some of these poor souls wanted to get into fortress Europe.

The response to this global problem has been wholly inadequate, the developed world has been extremely quick to add fuel to the fire by bombing countries, creating more displacement, but it has been very slow to help the victims of these wars. In fact if the developed world had taken the refugee problems seriously years ago, there would be no crisis.

There are solutions to this western created war crisis, first and foremost stop the arms industries flooding the world with western weapons, fuelling war. Our leaders need to have a commitment to peace and diplomacy, while it supports regional actors in with their internal and international development.

The refugees safety needs to be the chief concern, and this global crisis demands a global response, the world have to come together and work out a program and some concrete policies on how they are going to solve this. The problem is bigger than any one national state, even if the majority of the burden is falling on states that are out of sight and out of mind.

We are told that helping them encourages more of them, well they exist whether they exist in Europe, whether they are struggling to survive in the Middle East or Africa, they are human beings, who are in need because of conflict.

We can need to be investing in skills, training, integration, education which not only can help refugees thrive, while giving them the opportunity to begin rebuilding their lives – it can also provide some much needed investment in our own economies, providing jobs and infrastructure.

Refugees are quickly getting demoted to a number, and it all becoming a numbers game, but we are dealing with people, and this refugee crisis demands a human response and until our government stops putting the arms dealers and their spreadsheets first, this war crisis has no end in sight.

Hopefully the world will unite in creating a positive and peaceful solution but I will hold my breath on that one. Maybe if we declared war on refugees the worlds powers would be as enthusiastic about dealing with the aftermath of wars, as they are waging them.

By the time you are reading this the die would of already been cast, parliament will of already decided to extend its war into another country, or it will have not, but one thing is for certain there is no end in sight for the war on terror.

Ask yourself do you believe the world is a safer place?

A safer place after Iraq, after Afghanistan and after Libya?

After Mali and all the other skirmishes against the war on terror. Have all the bombs, all the dead soldiers and all the wasted life made you feel more secure in your home?

When you turn your light off at night and put your head down to rest do you rest easy and comfortable in the fact that you know British bombs are being dropped on foreign countries, and people and soldiers are dying in far flung lands?

I for one do not feel any safer in fact if the media is to be believed I should feel less safe now than I did in 2001.

In Afghanistan and Iraq we brought our full military might to bear, as did the coalition forces and what did we ultimately achieve? Did we wipe out Al-Qaeda, did we stamp out terrorism?

Nope, in fact we did the complete opposite.

As the former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller stated: “Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people – not a whole generation, a few among a generation – who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack upon Islam.”

She went on to state that our military involvement in both places substantially increased the terror threat to this country.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, if then with our full military might we actually made this country unsafe, then what do we expect to achieve with just our air force?

The phrase “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” comes to mind but we don’t just have a hammer, we have a multitude of tools that we could be using to bring about an end to ISIS, so the question has to be asked, why are we not using them?

A military solution with no end game in sight, no way out, no plan for victory is just a repeat of the same mistakes which brought us to this dreadful place in the first place.

We need to be utilizing all the tools available to us to combat ISIS, throwing more bombs into the war will not defeat this enemy, it is an ideology you cannot defeat it with bullets.

The generals in the First World War are discredited in history for their pig headed stubbornness in throwing young lads over the tops to their deaths, even though the tactics were not working they continued onwards.

The same can be said with the war on terror, our military actions have been counter productive, it is time we look at changing our tactics.

We can put pressure on regional countries which are making ISIS possible, go after the source of their income, cut off their weapons and ammo supplies.

Look into diplomacy with Russia and Assad, while at the same time support regional forces which have proven they can be reliable, the Kurds for example.

The choice isn’t between bombs or more bombs, there is more than one way to combat and ultimately defeat ISIS.

Funnily enough our allies Turkey have been bombing the hell out of one of the only forces in Syria which have been truly successful against ISIS, the Kurds in Rojava, and their allies.

Our efforts however to pursue non-military measures against ISIS are hampered by the fact some of our “allies” are less than willing to help.

In the end the only people that will profit from dropping bombs are arms companies and terrorist organisations which can use it as a propaganda tool. If anything with each bomb dropped we are further away from our goal, because inevitable each bomb either causes civilian casualties or takes us that much closer to the bomb that will.

For example when the USA bombed a Doctors without Borders hospital, I’m sure that caused a lot of terror to those involved but it is ok, because well they apologised so it makes it all better, right? I’m sure the victim families really understood that by killing their loved ones we were doing it to protect them in the long run of course.

If our recent history is to believed however one thing is for certain this will end in failure. What are your views on Syrian intervention and ISIS? Let me know in the comments below.